The present application relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a program, and an imaging apparatus including an optical microscope, which process an image signal obtained by an image sensor to thereby correct lightness distribution of an output image.
From the past, for example, a digital still camera including an image sensor such as a charge-coupled device (CCD) is widely used as an imaging device. When an image of an object is captured with such an imaging device, a shading correction technique for correcting distribution of lightness or luminance of the captured image is used in many cases.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-200888 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 1) discloses the following shading correction technique. In the technique, first, an image of a colorless subject having a high luminance level is captured as a reference subject. Based on a distribution state of the luminance levels of video signals thus obtained, correction data corresponding to a distance from the center point of a lens or a position of the lens is created using a mathematical expression. With this correction data, the luminance level of the video signal obtained by image-capturing is corrected (see, for example, paragraph [0020] of Patent Document 1).